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Founded in 2016 by Co-Ceo Tunde Kehinde and Co-CEO Ercin Eksin, Lidya uses a credit algorithm to allow small businesses to build a credit score and access financing to grow their business. Their platform uses over 100 data points to build a customized credit score.
Their loans have gone to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in farming, hospitality, logistics, retail, real estate, technology and health.
Lidya has built the application process through a free online account or the Lidya app. Through either portal, MSMEs can share bank account and transaction information to Lidya. MSMEs can then apply for a loan, which range from $500 to $50,000 and are decided upon in 48 hours.
Lidya raised $1.25 million in March of 2017. Accion Venture Lab led the round with participation from Newid Capital, Savannah fund and David Chan.
In May 2018, Lidya raised $6.9 million. Omidyar Network led the round which included Alitheia Capital, Bamboo Capital Partners, Tekton Ventures, Accion Venture Lab and Newid Capital. Lidya committed the new capital to expand its loans and scale, enter new markets outside of Nigeria and bring in more data scientists and engineers.
Founded in 2016 in Nigeria by Tunde Kehinde, Lidya has operations in New York, Lagos, Porto, Warsaw, and Prague. As of October 2019, they had provided approximately 10,000 loans in Nigeria.
Lidya uses an online scoring system to evaluate small business loan applicants. They distribute microloans as little as $150 with turnaround time of 24 hours.
In 2017, the company participated in the MasterCard Start Path Programme and raised $1.25 million from Accion Venture Lab. In 2018, the company raised $6.9 million in a series A round. Investors included Omidyar Network, Alitheia Capital, Accion Venture Lab, Bamboo Capital Partners, Newid Capital, and Tekton Ventures.
In 2019, the company started targeting lending in Eastern Europe, including Poland and the Czech Republic, in order to expand.
The company's co-founder and co-CEO, Tunde Kehinde, was interviewed by CNN and Techcrunch.
